Lo! the SILVER PRICE rose 7.6% this week, the GOLD PRICE rose 3.2%, stocks spun their wheels noisily and slung mud everywhere without ever gaining any traction, the white metals jumped, and the US Dollar Index proved once again that only a fool trusts Ben Bernanke.

The SILVER PRICE swelled 2.7% today, 105.8c, to close Comex at 4060c. Like Humphrey Bogart brushing through one of those bead curtains in a North African bar, silver brushed past 3965c resistance overnight. By the time New York opened it was already trading at 4020c. When silver bears tried to sell it off, they merely wasted their money and silver brushed them aside, too, and kept on climbing. I reckon silver looked around and figured that if it was this easy to clear 4000c, it might as well go for 4100c. It did, and now is trading around 40.90.

The GOLD PRICE wasted no time once it jumped the barrier at $1,460 - 1,465. Might as well add another ten bucks! $14.90 higher gold closed at $1,473.40.

How much further can they rise? The gold price won't slow down before it hits $1,525, maybe $1,600, and the silver price has no ceiling above except a bull market trendline about 4600c. If you don't have some, you'd better buy some. Of both. Next week they will rise more.

That US DOLLAR INDEX finally found the trap door in the floor and fell through it today. Yep, made a new low at 74.848, and a new low close, and trades now at 74.869, down 71.6 basis points from yesterday. Since the last low occurred in March at 75.25, one is forced to conclude that the Dollar will pay a visit to the December 2009 low at 74.23, or maybe go whole-hog forthe 70.70 low. Yen now has fallen to 84.73/$ (118.02c/100 yen), suggesting it will fall much further. In a burst of logic, common sense, and insightful judgment the euro jumped up 1.24% today to 1.4483 on news that Portugal has gone paws up and must go begging to Brussels for a bail-out. Not much, $100 billion or so. Yea, man, this is the sort of event that inspires confidence in me about the euro. Looney.

Dollar will move lower, which paves the way for higher silver and gold prices.

STOCKS have rounded a double top this week, and put in another ragged performance today to prove it. Week's high came at 12,450.93 for the Dow, which illustrates how important it is to insist that a new high exceed the last high by 2%. Back in February the Dow topped at 12,391.29, and this week's 12,450.93 high didn't even approach the 12,639 needed for a 2% betterment. Now the Dow has resumed its old habit of making a broadening or megaphone top, with flat or slightly higher highs and lower lows.

Stocks are really going to shine and outperform every other investment -- in about 5 - 10 years after they have completed their bear market. Until then they remain a croker-sack swimsuit in the Shop Of Attractive Investment Swimwear.

Here's an addition to my comments yesterday about the US government shutting down. EVEN IF it does shut down, it won't make as much difference as a gnat's eyelash. For 50 years, nay, eighty, they have built a structure that must inflate and spend, or die. If they close a day, a week, a month, makes no never-mind, they will return and spend and inflate some more. They can do no other.

Joe Stalin said that no ruling class voluntarily leaves the stage of history. This one won't, either. Even when they are shoved aside, they will still be posturing and play-acting.

This is the same government that tells you it's okay to drink radioactive milk but dangerous to drink raw milk. Are y'all really going to miss 'em?

Clearly some of y'all suffer from definitional confusion, since y'all expressed surprise or reservations about my calling the usurpation in Washington the "yankee government." First of all, it's an IMPERIAL yankee government, because the US has become an empire, no longer a federation of republics and certainly not a (har-de-har-har) "democracy."

Second, y'all can't tell the difference between a "yankee" and a "northerner." A yankee is somebody who knows everything about everything and is not backward to tell you how they do it up north, even when you never ask him and surely don’t want him to tell you. In other words, a meddling, bullying, busybody.

A "northerner" on the other hand, is someone unfortunately born north of the Mason Dixon line. Most people from up North are "northerners", while Washington is full of yankees -- some of 'em even from the South.

On this day in 1935 the New Deal (also known as the "Raw Deal") congress approved the WPA or Works Progress Administration to create make work jobs and thus relieve unemployment. Back then Americans were no dupes, so even the fellows who got the jobs leaning on shovels re-named it "We Piddle Around."

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate in a bubble, primary trend way down. Whenever I write "Stay out of stocks" readers inevitably ask, "Do you mean precious metals mining stocks, too?" No, I don't.